His face darkened, and for a moment I thought it was with animosity. But I realized with a small, startled cry that it wasn’t. It was agony.

“What I lost today was worth more than any world.”

Seeing this side of him – something other than moody arrogance and icy control – shocked me to my core. It cracked my defences, and left me with the absurd desire to take his hand and say, “I’m sorry.”

But I filled in those cracks, refusing to feel for the man who’d trapped me.

“Maybe you deserve it,” I spat.

That was a mistake. Maybe he really will want to kill me now.

But he showed no anger. The twisting grief in his expression deepened for a split-second, then suddenly vanished, replaced by wintery distance.

His gaze fell to his hands, which he looked at oddly, as if he didn’t recognize them.

“Perhaps I do.”

A hushed beat passed. Weariness flooded my limbs. I absolutely hated it, but all I wanted now was to crawl right back into my beautiful jail cell of a room and sleep.

Without another word, Wylfrael led me there.

Without another choice, I let him.

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CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN Wylfrael

I remained in the chamber below Torrance’s for the remainder of the blustering afternoon. I slouched in one of the chairs, rubbing at my jaw and staring at the flickering firestone for so long I barely registered the stretching of shadows as day howled into night. Aiko brought me an evening meal, and when I saw the other plate on the tray, meant for the human above, I merely grunted, “Make sure she eats it,” before closing my chamber door behind her.

I took my plate over to the table but did not eat. I didn’t sit down again, either, instead opting to pace the room in tensely measured strides, my hands clasped behind my back, my wings stretching and folding over and over again. My thoughts swirled like the storm outside. Thoughts of Skalla, in an unknown location, in an unknown state of mind, with an unknown mate. Thoughts of star-darkness and inaccessible councils and gathering shadows. Thoughts of my faceless future bride, bloodied by my own blade.

And thoughts of a small, insolent, sorrowful human, the hardest to shake of them all. Her proclamations were winding tight cords inside me, binding me in confusion that felt so much like a cage I wondered who the real prisoner was.

You punish me for something I’ve had no hand in! I was brought here against my will! I’ve lost everything!

I stopped pacing, breath hissing between my fangs. My vest felt suddenly too tight, and I wrenched it off my body, tossing it, along with my sword, into a heap on the floor.

Was she truly a victim? Had I been wrong in how I’d treated her?

Or was she simply a very accomplished liar?

I didn’t know enough of her, or her people, to formulate an answer. I’d have to proceed with the interrogation, just as I’d always planned, and hope that I could force my way through any falsehoods.

I’ll start tomorrow, I vowed. After some sleep, when some of my sanity returns.

Outside, the storm finally exhausted itself, settling into silence. But despite the calm, sleep did not come to me.

I lay on my back in the bed, hands behind my head, staring up at the ceiling and pretending that I wasn’t imagining exactly where Torrance was above me. My jaw ticked as I pictured her, almost against my own will, the image infuriatingly absent of concrete details. Was she asleep, like I was supposed to be? Or was she awake, trying and failing not to think about me just as I was about her?

Is she weeping?

If she was, I could not hear it. I stiffened against a sudden restlessness, the urge to crawl, like a Sionnachan dog, to her door and press my ear against it.

I did not do it. But my ears strained anyway.

And in that straining, I did hear something. Not weeping...

But footsteps.

Slow, quiet, faltering footsteps, each one less solid and sure than the one before, as if each step forward, downward, weakened whatever resolve had brought her out of her room in the first place.

I was mildly surprised that my initial reaction to this wasn’t anger, but curiosity.

Where does my little human think she’s going in the middle of the night?

I rose from the bed silently and stalked to the door. I left it closed, crossing my arms and leaning against it, my ears tipped to the side, primed to catch any new sound she made.

The sotasha fur on the stairs muffled her movements, but even so, I was keenly aware of her positioning, something I could sense through the door almost more than I could hear.

I knew the moment her foot touched the landing outside. She didn’t have time to react before I’d wrenched the door open, seized her, pulled her into my chamber, and closed the door again. I crowded her with my body, forcing her backward until she collided with crystal, my hands circling her waist.

“Do I need to put a lock on that door?” I murmured beside her ear. She shivered, and the movement made her silken skin graze my lips.

“No! I don’t... I just couldn’t stay in there any longer. I feel like I’m going crazy.”

Well, that makes two of us, I thought wryly.

“It’s not like I could escape,” she panted bitterly. “You and I both know I wouldn’t get very far outside.”

“Were you planning on going outside?” I asked, noting the lack of winter clothing. Her small, pale feet were bare on the crystal, and her body heat bloomed outward from her thin, short-sleeved tunic.

“I don’t know! I just needed some space. Something other than that room. I felt like I was suffocating.”

Maybe that feeling of suffocation was why she breathed so raggedly now. Her chest rose and fell in violent motions, each heaving breath making the tips of her breasts brush my bare front. I realized that I’d once again gotten my thigh between both of hers. Yet more heat seeped through both her trousers and mine, coming from the hidden place between her legs, burning me from knee to groin.

In a blinding, explosive moment, I was consumed. Consumed by soft skin and heat. Fury and desire. Desire so confounding I could not even name it. There were too many facets in the need, like a dagger of dark crystal lodged in my chest. I wanted to push her away. To punish her. To drag her by her fragrant hair out into the snow, barefoot and begging, until she was so cold she’d have no choice but to retreat into the venomous mercy of my warmth.

Sionnach preserve me, I wanted to palm the swells of her breasts. To feel them with my hands instead of the skin of my chest.

I wanted to want nothing at all.

But my cock thickened, and my hips twitched, and I knew that the salvation of wanting nothing would not come to me tonight.

I wrenched myself away from her, wings flexing, suddenly desperate for space, air, stars, darkness.

“You want to go outside?” I rasped.

Begging... barefoot in the snow...

It was only by sheer force of will – the will of a god – that I did not look down at her toes. My voice was strangled when I spoke again. I did not recognize it when I told her, “Get your boots.”

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CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT Torrance

I screwed up.